Park Tudor waits weeks to hand over evidence according to court documents
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Former Park Tudor teacher and coach, Kyle Cox, faces one count of coercion and enticement for his alleged involvement with one of his students.
According to a federal complaint, Park Tudor school officials, where Cox used to work, wouldn’t hand over evidence until police served a search warrant three and a half weeks after the school learned of the allegations against Cox.
The complaint says that on December 14, the victim’s father first told school officials about sexually explicit material found on his daughter’s cell phone. However, it wasn’t until police had a search warrant on January 7 that the school eventually handed over evidence to police.
“You can’t keep that in your drawer somewhere and decide, well I’ll bring it up a couple weeks later when the police get a search warrant,” said criminal defense attorney Jack Crawford.
Crawford is not representing either party involved, but has stayed up to date with the case.
The complaint alleges that Park Tudor reported to the Department of Child Services that Cox and the student had an inappropriate relationship, but that they didn’t believe there was physical contact and did not know if pictures were exchanged.
However, the victim’s father had given the school his computer overnight as well as hard copies of text messages which contained sexually explicit texts, pictures and videos, according to the court documents.
“They reported it, but they didn’t report everything that apparently they knew,” said Crawford. He added, “My understanding of the law is you must report everything you know. There is no chance for someone to think about it for awhile and then call authorities. They have to be completely forthcoming.”
According to the documents, Park Tudor officials fired Cox a day after learning of the allegations. The same day he was fired, Cox was allowed to take home a work computer and bring it back the next day, the documents allege.
“Who knows what Mr. Cox did with his Park Tudor computer during that 24 hour period. Certainly it suggests that he would be deleting materials that would be harmful to him in this investigation,” said Crawford.
Crawford also took issue with another accusation in the complaint; that Park Tudor only reported to DCS and not police, “This is such a serious matter that I think they bore a moral obligation to call the police, as well as CPS. But legally, they might be off the hook so to speak,” he said.
Crawford added aside from not handing the material over to investigators, there’s another issue, “Park Tudor apparently had photos of sexually explicit activity between one of their students and a coach, a teacher there at the school. They had that in their possession. That’s child pornography.”
The US Attorney says the case is still open and it’s possible more charges could be filed against Cox and/or Park Tudor. The federal complaint is the first stage in the charging process. An indictment would follow.
24-Hour News 8 reached out to Park Tudor and their attorney. Both say they don’t plan on releasing any additional statements beyond the statement sent out on Thursday. It read in part:
We reported the allegations against Mr. Cox to Child Protective Services within 24 hours, and we are fully cooperating with the police investigation,” Cathy Chapelle Director of Stategic Communications. She continued, “The safety of our students continues to be our top priority.
